Watson was visiting the Swiss: Watson was on his way back from Naples to Copenhagen, Denmark, where he was a postdoctoral fellow, and he stopped in Geneva.

had made it even into the pages: “Chemists Solve a Great Mystery: Protein Structure Is Determined,” Life, September 24, 1951, pp. 77–78.

Pauling started to think about proteins: There are quite a few biographies of Pauling. I found the following particularly helpful: Hager 1995; Serafini 1989; Goertzel and Goertzel 1995; and Marinacci 1995. A number of books cover various aspects of Pauling’s work excellently. Among them I would like to mention Olby 1974; Lightman 2005; Judson 1996; and, of course, the fantastic website at Oregon State University: http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/specialcollections//coll/pauling.

His first papers on the subject: Pauling 1935; Pauling and Coryell 1936. Pauling and chemist Charles D. Coryell performed the experiment by suspending between the poles of a large magnet a tube of cow blood; Judson 1996, pp. 501–2, gives a good description.

Alfred Mirsky, a leading protein expert: Pauling did not have much expertise with protein molecules, so he convinced Mirsky, who was at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, to come to Caltech for the 1935–36 year. (He also convinced the Rockefeller Institute’s president to allow Mirsky to leave!)